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1st Record/1st Concert

The first record I bought? Hmm ... it was a 45 of Floyd Cramer playing "Chattanooga Choo Choo." Actually, the act of buying the record outweighed the enjoyment of listening to it. First concert? 1961 at the Encino Community Center, featuring Dick and Dee Dee and the great Ron Holden. I'll never forget the silver sharkskin suit that Mr. Holden wore as he sang "Love You So."

Some rock and roll purists think that nothing happened musically between the fifties and the British invasion, but many of the greatest rock & roll records were produced in that period. But though those records may be a "guilty pleasures" to some people, I have no "guilty pleasures." To prove it, I’ll say that I even enjoyed the Muzac they played in supermarkets!

Back in 1960 and 1961 my listening pleasures were quite varied. I went from being totally wiped out listening to Lloyd Price sing "Stagger Lee" on the transistor radio to playing "Rhapsody in Blue" endless times on the turntable. In high school, I discovered classical music, and fell hard for it. To complicate matters, I also fell hard for “The Best of Muddy Waters”! The more musical genres the better!

However as I think about it, listening to such wildly divergent forms of music is its own snobbism. After all, the genuine snob is actually a kind of populist. And as for the "Summer of Love" (cough, hack, wheeze), I spent mine listening to “The Best of Little Walter,” which I ordered from Chess Records in Chicago and arrived on the day of my high school graduation in spring 1967. As my peers turned on their black lights and listened to Blue Cheer, I was listening to Little Walter for the ten thousandth time.

Cut to mid 70"s. I heard Charlie Parker for the first time and REALLY got jazz. Now who am I listening to? The harpsichord concerti of Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach...the greatest composer of ANY music from any time.

But back to rock and roll ( I’ll shed the snobbism for a moment), I believe that the highest art form within pop music or rock & roll is the great 45 which lasts two minutes or just a litlle bit over that.

Yours truly,
Rick Dubov esquire

P.S.

In the spring of 1967 I went to see Muddy Waters at what used to be Marty's on the hill at Stockton and La Brea. They were LOUD!!  But god were they great. I had become a damn good blues harp player by then..so i approached the harp player in Muddy's band, George Mojo Buford and asked him point blank.."Can I sit in with you guys?" So he said "I'll ask Muddy." Needless to say, I remained strictly an audience member for the rest of the evening. A final note on CPE BACH. Get the harpsichord concerti on the BIS label, and when you listen to them, crank it full volume on your headphones..what you will hear is 18th century rock and roll.  In the words of Jack Paar
"I kid you not"...

Rick Dubov is an artist living in North Hollywood. He is a dear friend to Paul Body, Chuck Weiss, myself and many others.

Another Fein Mess
AF Stone’s Monthly
January 2010

Party Like It’s 1899

As internet buying surged during this decade I thought “Gee, this is like the turn of the last century, when people ordered outhouses from the Monkey Wards catalog.”

Back then the recording company model was to give $10 or nothing to the artist because people who bought their records would come to their shows and they would earn more money. The discs, they argued, were like advertising leaflets.

Absent record companies today, self-financed recording is the same business model, except the musicians don’t get the ten bucks.

Singular views

There are people who see what we don’t see. You might watch a baseball game for the way the umpire moves, or a tv show for the hairdos. I, too, see what I want to see.

Cars in movies, for one thing. The movie “Strange Invaders” knocked me out in 1980 because, shot in Canada it featured a 1956 Canadian Ford Meteor. The Canuck version had a cooler grill and taillights than the American! (56meteor.com). Man, I was screaming! And the narrow whitewalls on the ‘50 Ford in “Great Balls Of Fire’ scene set in 1957. Whatsamatta with those people!

And the needle that drops on a record in almost any back-looking movie and plays, say, Long Tall Sally by Little Richard inevitably shows an ABC-Dunhill or othersuch wrong label. For shame!

One recent JFK docu showed Frank Sinatra doing a song dedicated to JFK, but all I could see was Louis Prima standing behind him!

Louis’s last wife Gina is suing the L.A. stage production of “Louis & Keely” for distortions of the Prima biography. As the widow she has the rights to him. I haven’t seen/won’t see the play, but I’ll bet it doesn’t hail her as the savior of Louis’s final years.

(Bulletin. The play has been renamed something like “The Vegas Years, songs that might have been sung by Louis & Keely.”)

Music Panic Attacks

I don’t get much response to stuff I write here, but I know you’re out there, we get a hit-count. (Mostly me, going back and fixing stuff.) And I don’t want to open this up on Fiercebook because ... who ARE those friends? But how about this:

Have you ever been kneecapped by a song? A few years ago “Whole Lotta Shakin’“ came on the radio and the assault, the rumbling piano at the beginning, so grabbed me and, to some degree, scared me that I had to stop the car and be engulfed by it. Same happened when I was in a store listening to a CD that Paul Body made and “The Sun Is Shining” by Elmore James came through the headset. I looked around, thinking the world was coming down around me, and held onto something firm. Anyone seeing this would have called for an ambulance, but I was alone. And a while ago I was sitting in the perfect acoustic conveyor, my car, where I had turned up the sound on a soft song when “I’ll Never Need More Than This” by Ike & Tina came on. It was so loud and so all-encompassing I felt like I was on a battlefield. The harsh drum beats were like cannon shots, the chanting girls egging it on like demons of joy in a wall of perfect sound. Whew.

So I’m nuts. You?

These Are the Times of L.A.

The December 30 “The Nation” page could have been pulled from The Daily Worker. What we needed to know in L.A. that day was that a billionaire who bought $4 million worth of misattributed wine (faked pedigrees) has spent $7 million tracking down the varmints who swindled him. Brian Haas went to Palm Beach, Florida to bring this news back to billionaires here. Beware, brother, beware!1

1 A far more important human, Louis Jordan, made a wonderful record “Beware,” warning men that women want to get married (“If her sister calls you brother, you better get further”) and a distaff version, “Look Out” (“If he drives you to the beach and starts to reach, Look out sister, look out”).

Time Bends

In 1978, “Animal House,” set in 1962, seemed as distant as the 1930s. Similarly, “American Graffiti,” 2 released in 1973, was only ten years removed from its era yet the times seemed ancient. So do people today in their early adulthood look back on 1994 - or 2000! - as utterly irretrievably irrelevant? The computers weren’t as fast and the cellphones were bigger. Maybe it’s subleties. Or maybe the Kennedy assassination actually altered the orbit of the earth ... Ike Pappas, a talker (and how!) on a Nov 22 panel on CSPAN, said he was in NYC in 1963 and put in a nickel to make a phone call. “They were a nickel then” he said, reemphasizing his error. Well if he put a nickel in a phone in 1963 he was talking to himself. I never saw a nickel phone in my life, except once in 1975 in Louisiana where I had no one to call ...

2 The film’s title was the winner, or loser, of a contest in which no one came up with a good name, so the default was chosen. It is a lousy name, but no one pays attention to words.

I Watch TV

You can scan channels and find nothing but commercials. But no one has ever scanned and found nothing but programming... The Game Show Channel, which shows color game shows going back to the early 80s, ran What’s My Line and other b&w 50s stuff at 2 am. Now they run them earlier, sooner to turn the channel over to full-time advertising. Well, what money do they make if they’re just showing entertainment? ... CABLE WAS INVENTED TO GIVE COMMERCIAL-FREE PROGRAMS. No commercials, so you pay for the service. The fact that they jam the screen with waves of ads ads ads after midnight is their poke in your eye to say “Suckers!” If you work for Comcast, Time-Warner or any other tv content supplier you WILL rot in hell ... Not that I’m angry ... and listening (a year ago) to pay-radio in a rental car I went to “old radio shows” and found the slot that once held old ads, which I wouldn’t mind hearing, filled with new ads. We’re all marks. The vast wasteland of which Newton Minnow spoke is vaster than he could have nightmared ... The Encore western movies station, #290 at my house, seems to be a Gene Autry business. But recently I was shocked to see them advertising Roy Rogers movies. I seem to remember that when Gene went into the army in WWII, Roy was given Gene’s reins. This must’ve been a burr under Gene’s saddle, but now they’re both dead so what’s the diff ... In one of John R. McDonald’s 1960s books he remarks matter-of-factly about the quiet pause and black screeen that precedes commercial interruptions in programs. Now ads are shouted at double-volume any place they jam them ...

Fund Raising

I know I’m a snob, but when they run rock shows on the public tv station, two perfect (...) strangers stare out at you and say “Wasn’t that great! Oh you’re so lucky to be watching public television.” What’s not mentioned is they run this stuff only during pledge drives, but ... Who are these stiffs? A male and female on the wrong side of 40 tag-team their excitement. But wait: they’re radio geeks. Imagine the PBS people thinking that fans of Springsteen etc still listen to FM rock like it’s 1975 ... Grossly, Chills & Gnash are on now and the harmonies are GHASTLY. At least they’re doing their own song. When I see Bruce Springsteen and Mick Jagger duet on ‘Johnny B Goode’ I think of ‘guest stars’ interupting concerts by people I like. I don’t want to see visitors! Bruce and Mick add nothing to rock standards. It’s just silly unless you thrill to ‘someone famous, someone famous’ ...

Too Much TV

One lush market for tv ads is doctors office waiting rooms. You are not permitted to turn the sound down, it’s part of their contract ... At a hospital Emergency Room here there are two tvs showing, often, cop shows with shootings. That’s not the only clash: many times they’re on two different stations. If you didn’t come in with a headache, you get one ... At the Burbank Auto Club waiting area, a large hanging flat screen tv blasts travel ads. I pointed to it to the person at the front desk and said “What is THAT?” She walked over and came back and said “A package deal, for Disneyland.” Corporate America, we are your carpet ...

Hold it! I don’t think you’re gonna like this picture!

Will people stop picking on Annie Liebowitz already?? The 12/11 NY Times AGAIN points up the apparent unfairness she faces for borrowing $25 million she can’t pay back. Now it’s ballooned to $30 million. Her friends’ wailing that she endured years of “less than careful spending” has had no effect on the coalhearted bankers who are out the dough. Good advice came from one financial advisor, Larry Schiller, suggesting she pay her debt discreetly “in a measured fashion that will not suggest desperation.”

Youth Will Not Serve You Maybe it’s not just jungenvolk, but it’s them I first avoid as salespeople.
If you haven’t been around the track a few times, you tend to be blindly loyal to whoever employs you. So when I went to the bank to get a money order, free with a certain bank balance, the high school- plus girl behind the transom CHEERILY told me “Oh, now we’re charging five dollars for them!” Not a nod of sympathy, a covert and gentle gersture indicating “I know, I know, they make me do this.” Replying “Gosh, that’s great!” was not an option because the sentiment would be misunderstood.

I went to the cellphone store to enquire about a fancy one with GPS. “The Grunch model is brand new and has it” he said. It looked at it (it wasn’t for me) and said, “So it’s $199 after the $100 rebate?” No, he said, $239. “But it says $299 here.” Yes, but there’s a $40 charge for the GPS receiver.” I said, “So the model DOESN’T have GPS?” Yes, it does he said, a little impatiently, you just have to add the receiver. “Well why not say it’ll fly to the moon if you attach it to a NASA rocket?” He knew what I was saying, but was thinking “These goddam post-20s don’t accept how things are.”

On the other hand, in 1984, on the morning of my father’s sudden death of a heart attack at my parents’ snowbird rental at Leisure World in Laguna Beach, my dazed mother went to the bank and said to the cashier “I’d like to take out $500. My husband died last night.”

The cashier, a middle-aged woman accustomed to this situation, said “Did you say your husband died? If he did, the state of California will have to freeze your account until all his financial matters are resolved.” Suddenly sobered, Mom said, “Did I say he died? I meant to say he is very sick.” The woman, nodding, gave her the money.

Thanks a lot, Vinny In the 12-8 NY Times, Vincent M. Malozzi wrote about Jesus Leonardo, who prowls the Off Track Betting sites of NYC and scoops up tossed-away bet tickets. By resubmitting them later in the day, he collects on races that were disputed and readjudicated or just misunderstood by the buyers. He makes $45,000 a year at it!
Or did. Now that his story is out, he is out - of business.
Every OTB site will be swarming with new “stoopers.”
Sometimes it’s better to keep a story to yourself.

Old Movies Always Make Me Cry I want Susan King’s job. She evaluates reissues of old movies for the L.A. Times. She won’t come out swinging at “Citizen Kane” or rally for “Jackass.” These movies were reviewed when released and when put on VHS and DVD, so the “pool” opinions are set.

In late November she writes about ‘Gone With The Wind.’ Do you need to know, again, that many actresses auditioned for the part of Scarlett? But wait, there’s news. Now, with Blu Ray, someone says “I never noticed there were horses standing back of Scarlett and the Tarleton twins at the beginning of the film.” Big wow for people who watch the movie weekly, but who is this neutral information source?

It’s George Feltenstein, senior vice president of theatrical catalog marketing for Warners. Citing an employee of the company that released the film - it’s not journalism, but it’s easy. I can do it!

Kill The Critics

* In the 9-2 NY Times, Jon Caramanica excoriates singer Colbie Caillat. Her hit, sung with Jason Mraz, was “an easy trifle” (get my gun - AF) that “was a hit for both and a challenge for neither.”

Where do they get these easy-slagging snobs?

“again she was in the thrall of unchallenged love”...

Is everyone’s love-life as dirty and failure-filled as Jon’s?

Her songs “damn her as the least complicated popular musician of the day.” The damnation is all yours, Jon boy.

* Perhaps setting the pace for Harmonica Jon (above), Mikal Wood, another guy who can’t spell his first name (me neither), in the 8-29 L.A. Times damns Peter Yorn’s ‘lightweight quality’ with “Were those breezy little love songs worth all the trouble?” More condemning, he compared him to -- Colbie Caillat. It’s a cabal.

* Jon Cracamonica, in the 3-21 NY Times, sneered coldly at the Fleetwood Mac show he saw. Lindsay Buckingham made grand romantic gestures and Stevie Nicks twirled and swirled her fringe (adding the occasional “piercingly cloying vocals”) in a style set to please their core audience.

The familiarity that enraged Caca-moronica was strangely pointed. I shall check to see the high measure of his dudgeon when he reviews the gravel-gargling vocals and crowd-pleasing predictabilty of Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen shows. The same yardstick surely measures all.

* Eddie Murphy on Biography Channel paused somberly to recall how some critic slammed “Coming To America.” The inequity between him and the crits is vast, but Eddie, as sensitive to the written word as anyone, was scarred by it.

And that’s why crits get in the business.
Without that outlet, they’d be Mark Chapmans or John Hinckleys.

(For Chris de Burgh’s interesting reply to a critic, see the Irish Times) - Thanks to reader Bob Paton.

A Few Words, some good

* IN-sherntz, the two-syllable pronunciation sweeping the country, was formerly restricted to southern states. (You better take some out, baby, Jimmy Reed said.)

* GOOD! - Gail Collins, 12-3-09 NY Times, re the health care biill: “ ‘This was based mainly on cost,’ said John Ensign, a Republican who was actually completely wrong despite the extensive expertise he brings to the debate in his capacity as the only veterinarian in the Senate.”

* On the other hand, there’s this sidesplitting lede by Laura M. Holson in the same ish’s Thursday Styles: “It is a wonder that Tom Ford, the former creative director of Gucci and Yves St. Laurent who turned louche sexuality into high fashion in the 1990s, didn’t try his hand at directing a movie sooner.” How did they miss the hed “Turn Ford Louche On The Movies!”

* Mikael Wood in the 12-12 L.A. Times ends his paean to Morrisey citing a gal proclaiming ‘I want you, I need you, I love you’ to Ol’ Sourpuss “with a flash of lyricism her idol might have envied.” Does Wood not know whence came that lyricism? Morrisey does. * Andrew Blankstein, in the 11-14 L.A. Times, says of a vandal “the suspect is old school - 73 years old to be exact.” Old school! I‘VE LOVED THAT CLEVER TERM FOR CENTURIES. It’s ginchy.

* In the 10-15 NY Times, Allessandra Stanley writes that a “striking factor” about the 30 Rock tv show is “the acting limitations of its star and creator, Tina Fey.”

Even when you’re starring in a show that’s based on yourself, you have to try extra hard to please Sleazandra.

* And Jon Caramanica’s 8-18 review of John Legend tells us how uncomfortable Legend is with the women who surge the stage: “As with all of Mr. Legend’s seductions, this one was clumsy, accurate in step but not in feeling.” That thousands of sighing, shrieking, molting women in the same room think differently made no impression on Parson Jon.
When I want an evaluation of a man’s sexual effect on women, I go to a man. That’s a lie, but if I did, I’d go to an actual man. Rock crits do not write about sex because it’s something unknown to them. Female rock crits gush unashamedly to the point of “too much information” because ... they’re permitted. Male crits do not get aroused by anything 4 because they are first and foremost sour and judgmental. When a song or movie or story hits an emotional note, the harumphs you hear are crits, verily shouting “sentimental hogwash!” in the style of their mental and physical role-model Ignatius Reilly.

4 This could be the result of 40 years of feminist hectoring to not remark about a female artiste’s sexuality, even if she’s in her underwear bent over with her rear facing the audience grinding her munchy parts. It’s not an even playing field.

Xmas Truce

I have never read a book or heard a story about religion in my life. So when I heard recently that a certain person, according to something written (like I’m writing now, but two thousand years ago!) was of a certain tribe and was killed by members of another tribe, I thought “Hmm, interesting. But it was so long ago....”
So isn’t it time for forgiveness? As the information has trickled down to me the guy was Jewish. And he was killed by Romans. So I can only deduce that the Romans have been vilified for 2000 years by the Jews. And so in the spirit of the season, in behalf of the Jewish tribe that I somewhat represent, I would like to say CEASE BEATING UP AND ROUNDING UP AND KILLING AND DEMONIZING ITALIANS.

More Religion Thoughts.

I don’t dwell on Holocaust stuff, since it’s been drilled into everyone, but I sometimes pick up a book on WWII. In one, a testimonial by a Jewish survivor recounts these lyrics to a Hitler Youth song: “The Jews’ blood spurting from the knife makes us feel especially good.” Maybe reading isn’t such a great idea.

I’m like the early Hollywood movie moguls. Rich? Tyraniccal? Decisive? Accomplished? No, irreligious. In the main, the mythmakers of the 20s, 30s 40s were Jews who were 100% assimilated, marrying nonJews and promoting a picture of a wholesome, Christmas-loving America.

I’m no different. Hearing people in shawls speak an Arabic language was not exactly music to my Davy Crockett cap-crowned ears, and I stopped attending temple when my incorrigibility became firm.

I flatter myself. In fact we moved to an eastern European-based Jew-hating upper lower-class neighborhood far from the nearerst schule where our blue collar family - dad, a binder in printing companies, mom an office manager at a beauty supply calendar business - could afford to buy a house for $17,000. I returned to Jewish ambiance when we moved to Jewish/Italian Skokie junior year of high school, then, after the third year of college, to Boulder, which contained zero Jewish presence like nearby Denver, where the only deli I found served three thin slices of corned beef on white bread. San Francisco and Santa Cruz were similar no Jewish areas. Then in L.A. I started seeing temples and such. I had no use for them, but was glad they were there.

On the tv show I’ve kidded one friend about his Jewish observedness. But when I blatantly play the fool, I’m often misunderstood. For me to chide him, a little, about following strictures, I know full well who’s done some thinking and who’s taken the easy way out. It’s no different from atheists in society at large: those who preen are ridiculous. Nonbelief is not learned or strained for, it comes easy.

Half the 6 million who died at the hand of the Nazis were religion scorners. Didn’t matter, off with their heads. And the split remains among survivors: half pious, the others bitter and atheistic.

Blind Item

A Big City crit I mentioned a couple of ishes ago who’d called another crit to get a confirmation on a fact and was repulsed by him (“Do your own damned research”) went public about her limitations in December, imploring Facebook friends to help her assemble a “best of” list for the year and tell her about Elvis.

Annie Watch

* Not important but transparent is Ann Powers’ 10-17 review of singer Brandi Carlile. Though reared on country music, Carlile’s southern accent rings false, Ann avers, once you know that she comes from Ravensdale, Washington. What is the importance of that town? None. But since Annie is from nearby Seattle, a long description of its vicissitudes ensues. Irrelevant information overkill, but a chance to drop names like “the Puyallup Fair.”

* Considering a battered and beleagured singer’s style in an 11-24 piece, Ann says she “evokes a style of female empowerment that predates and still stands outside of feminism.” Unfeminism that empowers is as gymnastic a word-picture as a self-devouring Escher engraving.

The Big Stinker

Pat Goldstein, in his 12-18 L.A. Times blog, recalled “memorable tantrums” thrown years ago by director James Cameron. Memorable to whom?

Goldstein needs to shine a light on his own past instead. He never wrote a mea culpa for his column’s daily reports, in 1996, from “insiders” who told how ‘Titanic’ would sink faster, and at a greater cost, than the real boat because of the director’s excesses. When the film made Cameron king of the whole wide world (or was that Elvis?), Goldstein did not, as would be proper, throw himself at Cameron’s feet and say “I am so sorry for taking all those shots at you. I was wrong. Please forgive me.”

What stirs Goldstein’s continued animus toward Cameron (“tantrums” is a tad judgmental) is his own business, but he should fess up to his own misbehavior. What I saw in his ‘Titanic’ repeating - I mean reporting - was a crit rubbing his hands at the prospect of having another “Heaven’s Gate” to ridicule for years and years to come. His continuing petulance could stem from his disappointment at losing that opportunity.

But I am only an amateur psychiatrist.

The Holiday Party Season

I haven’t party-hopped for, oh, 25 years. Back when I wrote for newspapers I’d be invited to record company parties, but when I stopped so did the invitations. First I was gone; now they’re.

This season I heard about parties and showed up, you bet.

Dec 12 - Danny McGough has been keyboardist for a lot of great bands. I knew him with the fledgling Seven Deadly Five in the 80s. He had a 50th bday at his home in the Eagle Rock area. I didn’t write down his entire address figuring I’d follow the crowds, but when I got to Highland View at 8 pm I thought “There’s no party here - no lights are on.” But then I noticed there were no lights anywhere: there was a power failure. I went to where I saw flashlights beaming. “Power won’t be on til 4:30 am” one partygoer told me, but the light returned about an hour later. “Hey, everybody’s ugly” someone shouted. Stayed close to my friends Paul Body and Harvey Sid Fisher and watched partygoers come and go. Davie Farager, of Jack Shit and the Elvis Costello Band, complimented my tv show, and that felt good. Talked a while to Darian Sahanaja and a couple other Wondermints. Nice time indeed.

Dec 14 there was a bday party for Shell Saurer, someone I didn’t know. But I knew some of the people so went to the Big Foot Lodge at 9. Other parties were going on there, too 5, and I saw my first karaoke singers. Not going to bars, this was my first taste of actual America - I could have been in Tuscaloosa or Tucumcari 6. Ronnee Blakley sang one karaoke number. Re-saw many people from the McGough 7 gathering. Sat with Paul Body again, and met many fine folks. (The Big Foot interior is like a log cabin in Minnesota. Or for you Disneyland locals, the Northwoods Inn.)

Dec 20th I went to Molly Malone’s, a small-looking but big bar (it is a narrow space, but encompasses the space next door) on Fairfax to see The Sin City All Stars. It was refreshing to see a band that looked like every early 70s country-rock band in America and sounded the same. They’re all members of other bands; “You should hear us when we’ve rehearsed” is their oft-voiced battle cry. When Tony Gilkyson joined on guitar that night, they stopped the song dead after a few bars. “I was scared” said lead singer Bryson Jones. “We’ve never sounded that good before.” Good hilarity, music, people. Gram’s daughter Polly was on hand, I’m told. They play the first Wensday of every month there.

5 One mid-20s bunch was comprised of cute girl pro’s (performers) and hyper-thyroid males. One of the guys, a karaoker from Seattle, observantly said “You people here really suck driving in rain.”

6 “Tucumcari” is one hell of a great pop folksong by the ‘Honeycomb’ guy Jimmie Rodgers. Happy, with whistling and marching and vocal choruses, like a fast ‘Yellow Rose Of Texas,’ .

7 I’m not surprised he doesn’t spell it ‘McGoo’ like it sounds, but when he goes to San Francisco he must have a terrible time trying to find addresses on Gough Street.

Wise Fool

“I’ve sold all my records and CDs. Who needs them? Everything is on my computer now.”

Well, yes ... but none of my records ever crashed.

- 57 -

Mark On the Move

In early December I travelled to San Jose, CA to attend two Richard Thompson “all request” shows at The Montalvo Center at a winery in nearby Saratoga. . .and took advantage of being in the area to have breakfast at The Flames Coffee Shop, tour the Winchester Mystery House across the street, and take in a movie at the decaying-with-charm domed cinema Winchester 21-22-23 also across the street (a perfect Trifecta of soul & body nourishment).

The Flames, a fifties behemoth filled with local blue-hairs, Hispanic families and weathered guys in John Deere caps, plus overeaters such as your reporter, has an immense menu and serves huge platters of food including 4-egg omelets, one of which is still coursing through my ever-tightening arteries. Thank goodness Mrs. Winchester, as looney as she was, never ventured outside her door and had the good sense to die in 1922 – breakfast at The Flames might have profoundly transformed her worldview.

I thought the premise of Thompson’s “all request” show was to have fans ask for some of the more arcane items in his long songwriting oeuvre, but I underestimated the man: He promised to attempt any song ever written! (He is after all the guy who performed a show called “1000 Years of Popular Music.”) He had a helper in the wings with computer wi-fi access look up chord changes and lyrics he didn’t know, but he used the aid sparingly during six hours of seat-of-his-pants virtuosity over three nights.

Tunes of older vintage such as “Matty Groves,” “The Mingulay Boat Song” and “Shenandoah” mingled with Britney Spears’ “Oops! I Did it Again,” The Who’s “A Legal Matter” and Roger Miller’s “King of the Road.” Richard also amazingly performed an energetic version of Plastic Bertrand’s Belgian punk classic (sung in French) “Ca Plane Pour Moi,” The Incredible String Band’s “October Song,” Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary” and the Elvis version of “Mystery Train.” His take on “Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!” was as heartfelt as his passionate rendering of Edwin Starr’s “War,” and he re-harmonized Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” beautifully, stamping it as his own.

Thompson also responded to requests for some of his own compositions, including “Beeswing,” “Dimming of the Day,” “Wall of Death,” and “From Galway to Graceland,” and he was obliged to pull out a real rarity, his never-recorded anti-Kenny G polemic “I Agree With Pat Metheny” from 2000. The only song he really screwed up was one he tried to perform from memory, “Norwegian Wood.” Despite the audience shouting the correct lyrics, he bailed half way. (“Love Me Do” with local buddy George Galt guesting on harmonica, was delightful.)

He’s playing Largo in Los Angeles February 11th. I will be there.

-- Mark Leviton

(Mark’s sixties-themed radio show Pet Sounds can be heard alternate Wednesdays 10pm-Midnight PST on KVMR-FM 89.5 in the Sacramento area and streaming at www.kvmr.org )

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Bill From L.A.

eSPIONAGE

I never fished anyone’s Facebook file during my 6 months as a proud, uncaring member. Til this once.

A gal in a class I take is cute as a button, but of no use to me. (Too young, I’m ‘taken.’) But I am dazzled by her. I want to know her, just to know someone that young (32, she looks 20) and healthy and goodlooking. I spoke to her four times, haltingly and bumblingly. She failed to respond beyond a nod.

Recently the class instituted a sign-in and I got her last name. I went home and scanned FB. Number 33 out of 300 same-names was she: her so-cute picture melted my cold, prying heart. What a joy she is to behold! It was my first and only step into cyber-stalking.

I skimmed her page looking for a pattern. Her 345 friends were her age and scattered around the world. But one woman was older and had her surname, so I figured it was her mother. I clicked “Mutual Friends” -- and saw 17 people I knew staring back!

OMG! Mom is in the same business I am! Which means that if I went somewhere with Stacy I could have run into her mother with people I know! Tres awkward.

So it was Da Lawd who kept me from speaking easily to her. Kept me out the muddle. A premonition of embarassment, not a deep-seated lack of self-confidence. (Sure.)

I was surprised that I could trace her so easily.
I am not a nut! But if I was I could have tried twenty of her friends and maybe wheedled her phone number or address.
I am shocked how vulnerable everyone is on FB.

And these days that’s how it works out for me
Instead of being hot on her trail, I get paternalistic about her safety.